Do I need an electric fence certificate to sell my house?

Two certificates, two sets of rules

This is where most sellers, and plenty of agents, come unstuck. Your house needs an electrical Certificate of Compliance under the national electrical regulations. If it also has an electric fence, it needs an Electric Fence System Certificate under a separate law for electric fences. Different regulations, different registration, different piece of paper. An electrical CoC does not cover your fence, no matter what anybody tells you at the gate.

When it is required

The fence rules came into force on 1 July 2011, and the certificate requirement on 1 October 2012. Every user or lessor of an electric fence system must hold a certificate. An older system is left alone unless one of two things happens:

One: the system is added to or altered — a new energiser, extra lines, an extension along a new wall. Two: ownership of the property changes after 1 October 2012. In a normal Vaal house sale, that second one always applies. So if there is a fence, you need the certificate.

Who may issue it

Only a registered Electric Fence System Installer may issue an electric fence system certificate. That is a separate registration with the Department of Employment and Labour. A normal electrical registration, a red seal, or twenty years of experience does not give anyone the right to sign that form. The declaration on the certificate itself says the registered person personally carried out the inspection and testing.

Here is how it works in practice. I install, repair and maintain electric fencing to the electric-fence standard. The certificate is a separate one with its own inspection by a registered Electric Fence System Installer, and if you need it, that gets sorted out too. Worth knowing: a registered installer is obliged to refuse the certificate if the system has a defect, so the sensible order is to have the fence looked at first and certified after, not the other way round.

It does not lapse every two years

This is the difference nobody explains, so read it twice. The electric fence system certificate is transferable and does not lapse every two years. It moves to the buyer with the property, provided nothing on the system has been altered since it was issued. The electrical CoC works the other way: it never expires either, but a property may not change ownership on one older than two years.

So a fence certificate from 2019 can still be good today, if the fence is untouched. Add a line, replace the energiser or extend the wall, and you need a new one. The electrical two-year rule is explained here.

What usually fails, and how it gets priced

Fences are outdoor equipment on a Highveld plot. Things go wrong in predictable ways: sagging or loose wire tension, a dead or dying energiser, lightning damage over summer, plants growing into the lines, corroded joints, and a flat backup battery. Any of those can stop a certificate being issued.

What the repairs come to depends on which of those it is. Cutting plants off the lines and re-tensioning wire is a small job. A dead energiser or a lightning-damaged system is not, and a fence that has been up for fifteen summers usually needs more than one thing. New fencing is priced per metre for your wall, so tell me the suburb and roughly how many metres and I will price it on WhatsApp. A repair I have to find first is priced on site: my callout on a fence is R300, waived when you accept the quote. Either way the price is in writing before I start.